Just like the Beijing Olympic Games, Guangzhou will do its best to ensure that during the 16th Asian Games held in Guangzhou in the middle of November 2010, the air quality will be excellent and meeting the standard.

The Deputy Director of the Environmental Protection Bureau of Guangdong Province Chen Guangrong said recently at the press conference that although it is challenging to achieve this goal, in the recent a couple of years, the air quality improvement in Guangzhou area has been fairly significant, and the the environmental protection departments of Guangdong province and Guangzhou municipality have the confidence to ensure the achievement of this goal.

According to him, the local environmental protection departments plan not to take or take as few as possible "special measures" such motor vehicle odd-even traffic restriction or halting building construction to improve the air quality.

"Whether or not these specific measures will be taken is to be decided by the local government at that time. However, in the plan drafted by our environmental protection departments, these measures will not be taken or taken at the minimum level," he said.

The 2008 Guangdong Province Environmental Quality Condition Report released that day showed that compared to 2007, the levels of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, inhalable particles and other indicators have decreased fairly significantly, reaching the national level-II standard. Chen Guangrong said, currently, the air quality of Guangzhou reached the excellent standard in over 90% of the days throughout the year, the number of hazy days dropped from 131 days in 2007 to 110 days in 2008, indicating that the air quality has been significantly improved.

But he also said that taking into the account that the Guangzhou Asian Games is to be held in the middle of November, during which period the historical records showed that the air quality in Guangzhou was typically poorer, therefore, the mission to ensure the air quality in Guangzhou to meet the standard and become excellent during the Asian Games is still challenging.

He introduced that Guangzhou has set up a special agency to take charge in air quality work, and the air compliance pollution integrated control system and pollution control on motor vehicle exhaust emission have been vigorously promoted in the Pearl River Delta; it is planned to cut the emissions of sulfur dioxide and chemical oxygen demand by 3% and 4.5%, respectively, across the province. Guangdong province also learned from Beijing's experience of holding the Olympics, coordinating the neighboring cities of Guangzhou to adopt measures to improve air quality.

He said, "we are still confident to ensure that Guangzhou will greet the athletes from all the countries with standard-reaching, excellent air quality."